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Friday, May 27, 2005

And God said "Let There Be Corporate Tax Cuts!"

Is the fact that the US is slowly becoming a theocracy frighten anyone else? I'm shakin' in my agnostic boots and I don't even live in the country.

The true architectural wonder of New Life, however, is the pyramid of authority into which it orders its 11,000 members. At the base are 1,300 cell groups, whose leaders answer to section leaders, who answer to zone, who answer to district, who answer to Pastor Ted Haggard, New Life’s founder. Pastor Ted, who talks to President George W. Bush or his advisers every Monday, is a handsome forty-eight-year-old Indianan, most comfortable in denim. He likes to say that his only disagreement with the President is automotive; Bush drives a Ford pickup, whereas Pastor Ted loves his Chevy. In addition to New Life, Pastor Ted presides over the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), whose 45,000 churches and 30 million believers make up the nation’s most powerful religious lobbying group. - Soldiers of Christ: Inside America's Most Powerful Megachurch by Jeff Sharlett c/o Harpers.org

I don't pretend to be a expert in the US Constitution but isn't there something about separation of church and state in the document?

As they assemble in the vast sanctuary of Coral Ridge Presbyterian, with all fifty state flags dangling from the rafters, three stadium-size video screens flash the name of the conference: RECLAIMING AMERICA FOR CHRIST. These are the evangelical activists behind the nation's most effective political machine -- one that brought more than 4 million new Christian voters to the polls last November, sending George W. Bush back to the White House and thirty-two new pro-lifers to Congress. - The Crusaders by Bob Moser on Rollingstone.com